Services

Salters Hill junction victory

The Parking and Traffic Appeals Service has ruled that a contraversial Upper Norwood junction is flawed, leading to calls for Lambeth Council's head of parking to resign.

Former Beulah Hill resident Jonathan Greatorex, 37, set up a website dedicated to crazy parking stories after being fined at Salters Hill - which dished out a massive 6,286 penalty charges notices
just in 128 days. He claimed CCTV images used by the council to show he had broken the give way rules had been manipulated.

At his appeal, heard on January 26, parking adjudicator Joanne Oxlade found in favour of Mr Greatorex. She agreed the signage at the junction was inadequate and thought the zoom function to the
footage had distorted the stills produced, which seemed to show Mr Greatorex failing to give way.

She also said the video evidence provided by Lambeth Council failed to show a contravention occurring, as the give way signs and road markings were not clearly visible.

Mr Greatorex will now commence proceedings against Lambeth Council for damages.

"The judgement has been very good from our perspective but damning for the council," he said. "It's not just about my case but about the junction itself. The council should refund any money
collected from there, which could be about £500,000. It should also be investigated why enforcement was allowed to go on so long.

"I think the head of parking should resign as a result of this judgement."

Since July, when a scrutiny sub-committee ordered an investigation into the junction, CCTV montoring has been suspended there.

A council spokesman denied that images were deliberately manipulated. "The measures at this junction were introduced at the request of local residents, to improve safety and slow down traffic on
the road, which is adjacent to a park and a school," he said.

"We will be studying the adjudicator's findings carefully over the coming days to see what improvements need to be made.

"We have already suspended enforcement at the junction in order to make improvements to make it even safer and easier for drivers to negotiate."

Ipsoregulated

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